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When the original iPhone was introduced what now seems like so long ago, it sparked a revolution. The Multi-Touch interface that came with the iPhone changed the future of computing. Although the iPhone was not the first device to utilize this technology, it is far and away the most popular to ever hit the shelves.

Well, Apple seems to be at it again. A recent 30-page patent filing by Fingerworks, a company recently acquired by Apple, sheds some light on what could be Apple’s future plans for Multi Touch devices. In the filing, details are presented on voice fusion, finger identification fusion, gaze vector fusion, biometrics fusion, and facial expression fusion.

The idea of Voice Fusion is rather simple, and at the same time a bit of a “duh”. This feature would designate certain features of a device for use with a manual Multi-Touch input, while other tasks would be controlled by voice commands. An example of this is detailed in the picture above, in which you would use your fingers as a manual input to do things such as resize a box and enter text, and then use voice commands to do less specific tasks such as change the color of the box. Voice commands are dodgy at best for tasks such as resizing a box, as the information could be misinterpreted easily. Thus, only tasks that, for example, would regularly require the user to scroll through list and select an item, would be controlled by voice commands.

With today’s Multi-Touch input devices, not much information is taken from the device other than the fact that a finger is touching it, or moving around. One of Fingerworks’ dreams for Multi Touch is to take away that ambiguity. The company hopes to make Multi-Touch devices able to distinguish between certain fingers, such as when the index finger is touching the display or not touching the display, as opposed to the middle finger. Engineers suggest utilizing a built-in video camera to locate certain fingers on the hand based on XY coordinates.

Coming in with another way to integrate a built-in camera, the next idea outlined also has the potential to assist a user greatly. Using Gaze Vector Fusion, a camera would track the position of the user’s head and eyes, thus deciding what part of the screen he or she is looking at at any given moment. This could be used to do something like select a window that is located in a certain location on the screen. The user could just look at that window to select it or bring it to the front.

The next possible addition to Multi Touch seems like a no-brainer. Although things such as fingerprint scanners have been built in to computers before, never has a computer utilized Multi Touch to accomplish that. Users could set things like finger prints or hand prints to act as a personalized password to prevent access to sensitive information.

The last, but most definitely not least, addition to Multi Touch again uses a built-in camera to carry out its tasks. This one would use a camera to identify a face in front of a camera, and use this information for many different applications. One example would be expression recognition. Thus, a computer could identify if a user had a frustrated or confused look on his face, and subsequently offer the user help. 

Overall, all of these ideas would definitely revolutionize the revolution that is Multi Touch. Whether these ideas will be used in the near future is up for speculation, but I sure hope that at least some of them are integrated in to devices soon.

Via Apple Insider